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52
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He crossed the street and made for the hotel entrance. Arriving in his room, he opened the cabinet and then the minibar. He pulled out a glass and a small bottle of alcohol and brought them over to the nightstand.
Mort sat down on the bed, slowly opened the bottle of liquor and poured it into the glass. He drank half and stroked his beard as he stared blankly at the wall. His eyes moved from the wall and over to the doorway. A peculiar towel was sprawled across the floor.
Mort put his glass down on the nightstand and got up. He walked over to the towel, picked it up, and studied it closely. He suddenly realized where the towel had come from.
Quickly he walked back to the cabinet and pulled the tray with the glasses out roughly, toppling the glasses over. He wasn't in the mood to be careful about anything anymore.
He pulled the minibar out completely from the cabinet and looked in the space. 'The Nine Gates' was gone.
Not caring to replace anything, he began out of the room. As if on purpose, the phone suddenly rang. Mort growled to himself and stepped back into the room. He looked at the phone and thought about whether he should answer it or not.
After deciding that he wouldn't, he walked out of the room and shut the door. Mort took a step in the direction of the elevator, then stopped. He turned back, opened the door and marched back into the room. "Hello?" Mort said, annoyed.
"Mort," A female voice asked.
Mort winced and pulled the receiver away. He didn't know how Amy had known where he was or how she had gotten this number. All he knew was that he shouldn't have answered the phone afterall. "Aww.." He muttered and then placed the receiver back up to his face. "Yeah, hi."
"I've been so worried about you. Are you okay?" Amy asked.
Mort raised his eyebrows. "I'm okay, I'm okay, Amy. What?"
"Are you sure? When I saw you yesterday you seemed so strained. I mean..," Amy sniffled. She took a deep breath in.
"What!" Mort asked impatiently.
"Do you..um.. Do you think things would've been different if.. we hadn't lost the baby?" Amy asked.
Mort scowled. "Jesus Christ! I don't.. Amy. I don't know! Let me call you later. I-I gotta go. I-I gotta be somewhere," Mort said, pacing around the room.
Amy began to cry. God, he hated talking to her. Even more so now that she was crying and wasting his time all at the same moment. "What? What is it, Amy? Oh, just breathe. Breathe! Take a breath! Where are you? You at... Ted's?" Mort asked, sitting down on the bed.
"Yeah," Amy replied.
"How we feeling about old Ted, these days?" Mort asked.
"I don't know.. I love him, I guess," She replied.
Mort's heart managed to break even more than it had already had. "Oh... That's good."
"I didn't go with other men, you know. I always wanted to tell you that. I didn't go with other men. Only Ted, and only the last few months after you and me were already over," Amy explained.
"Well. If we were already over while we were still together, you might have mentioned it. Because it was news to me."
"That's because you weren't there anymore! You were gone all the time!"
"I worked at home, Amy!" Mort shouted.
"That's not what I mean. Even when you were with me, you were gone up in your head. I don't think that I looked in your eyes and actually saw you looking back at me, I mean, really with me for the last 2 years," Amy explained.
"You know what? You know what, you're right. You're absolutely right. It's all my fault," Mort agreed, willing to tell her anything so long as it would end this horrible conversation.
"No. I was a chickenshit," Amy said. She wiped her nose with a Kleenex. "Ted wanted us to go and tell you together. He kept asking and I kept putting it off. I'll never forget that look on your face.."
Both Amy and Mort had a flashback of that terrible night which had destroyed their marriage.
"You know what? I gotta go," Mort said, not wanting to talk to anymore ex-wives, not wanting to have any disturbing flashbacks, not wanting to talk about something so painful anymore.
"No Mort, wait. Can't we just--" Amy began.
"No! N.. I-I've gotta go!"
"Will you call me if you need me?" Amy asked.
"I doubt it," Mort replied.
"Can I come up there?" Amy asked.
"Come up here? Come all the way up to France! Why on earth would you do that, Amy?" Mort asked, wondering what the hell was wrong with her.
Amy breathed in and then responded. "You told me you were on a dangerous assignment. I just feel that if I were there, you might change your mind and see that taking that assignment was all a big mistake," Amy explained.
Mort didn't respond right away. He was too annoyed with her last comment. But finally he spoke, calmly and slowly. "You'll bring Ted along if you do, won't you?" He asked.
Now it was Amy's turn to be silent before she answered. After a moment she spoke up, "Yes, but he might be able to help you in some way. Mort, just let us come there so we can talk some sense into you."
"Unbelievable... You were worried about me and I believed you... What an idiot..," Mort said to himself. "You just don't want me to get any more money."
"No. That's not true. I am worried! You sound like you did six months ago and I think it's my fault. It's my fault. And I wish I could take it back, but I can't."
"Well then, I guess you shouldn't have fucked him then!" Mort yelled and slammed the receiver down with a crash.
Amy jumped, and turned off her phone. She stared at it, worried for Mort.
Mort flexed his jaw, and then finally managed to get out of the hotel room without any interruptions this time, slamming the door. As he rode in the elevator, he realized what an idiot he had been to not ask Amy a single thing about her whereabouts or 'The Nine Gates' or even Ted for that matter. But it was too late now.
He got down to the lobby and walked up to the reception desk to find the assistant clerk. "Excuse me. There's something missing from my room. Has anyone been up there while I was out?" Mort asked.
"Only your wife, Monsieur," The clerk replied.
"My wife? I don't have a wife anymore!" Mort said, annoyed.
The reception desk's phone rang. "Oh, I'm sorry, Monsieur," The clerk apologized, picking up the phone.
Mort turned around, extremely annoyed now.
"Oui?" The clerk answered. He looked up at Mort. "Oui! Il est devant moi maintenant."
Mort turned back and looked at the clerk wondering what was going on.
"Pour vous, Monsieur." The clerk said and pointed to the phone booths on the other side of the lobby. "Cabine deux."
Mort looked in the direction of the clerk's finger, took one last glance back at the clerk, then walked over to the second booth suspiciously. "No more," He said quietly to himself before picking up the phone. "Yes?" Mort asked, still annoyed.
"What news?" Balkan asked.
Mort was not surprised by the least at Balkan's calls or any other strange calls for that matter. He'd become... accustom to them now.
"News?" Mort asked, looking up at the ceiling of the booth and thinking. "Let me see... Well, yes. The good news is that I got to examine the old woman's book. And three of her engravings were signed 'LCF'. The bad news is that someone strangled her and made a bonfire of her collection. Now that's tragic, wouldn't you say?"
"You took the words out of my mouth."
"Yes. It's the Fargas story all over again. I'm of the mind that they tore out the engravings before they torched the place. That makes two sets they've got."
"And my copy?" Balkan asked.
"Well, uh... I learned my lesson, fortunately. I don't carry it around with me anymore. Otherwise it would've gone up in smoke."
"Excellent," Balkan remarked. "Good thinking. Well, with the two copies gone that seems to conclude your assignment. It only remains that you return my book. I'm staying at the Ritz. You can pick up your check at the same time. Shall we say half an hour?"
Mort swallowed hard. "There's more bad news. Um... I don't have it."
"You don't have it?"
"Someone lifted it from my room."
There was a long pause, then Balkan continued. "Listen to me very carefully, Mr. Corso. I think you may already have some idea of which the length I'm prepared to go when I want something. Unless you recover my property in double quick time, you'll discover just how far that can be." The line clicked and then Balkan was gone.
Mort slowly hung up the phone and walked out of the booth. And then he saw the girl. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pinned her against the wall. "Where is it?" He demanded.
"Where's what?" She asked.
"The book, where is it?" He demanded again.
The girl pulled out of his grip and turned the tables on him. She twisted his arm behind his back and pinned it there. It made a loud crack as she did so. Mort winced as she gripped him. "Would I be here if I did it? Huh? You should know better by now," She said, roughly releasing his arm from her hold.
He groaned, straightened up and turned to face her. Clutching his arm, he walked back to the reception desk.
Gruber had now returned. "I must apologize for my young colleague, Mr. Corso. It was unpardonable of him."
Mort rubbed his arm and nudged his head in the direction of the girl. "Is that her?"
The assistant clerk shook his head. "No, Monsieur. She was very tall, very thin, very blonde, sheek, elegant--"
"Which reminds me, sir. I have the information you wanted. The lady and gentleman you mentioned. They're staying at..." Gruber looked down at his paper. "The Plaza Athenes Hotel. Suite 209-211." He handed the paper to Mort. The girl snuck up beside him as he read it.
Mort took the paper and shoved it in his bag. "Thank you very much, Gruber. I owe you one. But right now, I need a taxi. Quick."
"Un taxi! Vite!" Gruber ordered the assistant.
Mort grabbed a piece of hotel stationary from the desk and a pen and scrawled down a message. "Send this to Mr. Balkan at the Ritz. That's B-A-L-K-A-N" Mort instructed. He finished scrawling down his message which read:
It's my wife!
Corso
"Fax it immediately," Mort ordered.
Gruber took the paper. "Certainly, sir." Mort slid him another 100 Franc and walked to the entrance. Gruber took it. "Always a pleasure to be of service."
The girl still stood at the desk. "Coming?" Mort asked and the girl turned, walked out of the hotel with him.